Devotion to the cult horror game will not be released after a joke on the Chinese president

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The Taiwanese game developer Red Candle Games has released a new statement on the status of its horror game, Devotion, which was removed from Steam in February as a result of a Winnie the Pooh joke. And it looks like the developers are not going to re-issue the game. In his new statement, Red Candle has confirmed that he would not be putting Devotion back on the sale, as a result of a controversy over the issue. an included joke referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Pooh.

"In the last four months, the Devotion-related art incident has caused immeasurable harm to Red Candle Games and our partner. We wish to extend our sincerest apologies to all affected teams and staff members, "wrote the Red Candle Games team in a public statement posted on Twitter.

And although Red Candle says she's still in "commercial mediation," the Red Candle co-founders "have taken the unanimous decision not to re-publish" Devotion "in the short term, including taking advantage of sales, Review, IP Authorization, etc. to avoid any unnecessary false idea. "

The tweet of Red Candle Games is the first public statement in four months since Devotion was removed from Steam. At the time of the initial controversy, Red Candle Games announced to the players that his team was negotiating the return of Devotion to Steam. But the developers remained largely silent after the first controversy. Red Candle Games has also extracted all of its Devotion trailers from its YouTube channel.

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Iain Garner, a Taiwan-based game publisher, also reported that Indievent, Devotion's publishing partner in China, lost his operating license since the Devotion controversy. But we do not know if this incident is related to the fact that the game of Red Candle has been removed from Steam.

Unfortunately, anyone looking to play Devotion again may have to wait a while, if not indefinitely.

Why Red Candle Games fired Steam's dedication to the critically acclaimed horror game

Red Candle Games has made itself known after the release of its 2017 horror game, Detention. The detention took place in the 1960s, at the time of the White Terror, when political dissidents in Taiwan were repressed. Critics hailed the fears and originality of the detention, and IGN called it one of the best horror games of 2017. The detention was also adapted to give rise to a live horror film which will be released later this year.

Two years later, Red Candle Games followed Detention, followed by Devotion, which the studio released on Steam in February 2019. Critics again praised the second match of Red Candle, including IGN Japan, which got a score of 9.8 out of 10.

But a week later, Devotion was removed from Steam as a result of a campaign of bombings led by Chinese citizens. The bombing that resulted from the bombing resulted from the inclusion of an artistic element in which Chinese President Xi Jinping was compared to Winnie the Pooh in the launch version of Devotion.

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The reference to Winnie the Pooh was found in a poster inside the game. When she interacted, she said the words "Xi Jinping the jerk of Winnie the Pooh" in Chinese. The reference would not be easily recognizable to anyone who can not read Chinese. The controversy was therefore almost exclusive to Chinese-speaking territories.

However, when it was discovered, the players' reaction was the cause of a series of events that caused Devotion to withdraw from Steam within a week of its release.

A lot of noise for Pooh

Winnie the Pooh has become a taboo subject on the Chinese internet. Since Xi became China's leader in 2012, people used cartoon images to joke about the president. Pooh was used as a physical comparison with Xi, but the meme became mainstream and then censored on Chinese Internet services, including social media platforms like Weibo.

The censorship of Winnie the Pooh in China has been so widespread that the country has denied the release of Christopher Robin's Disney movie. And in video games, Chinese gaming websites went so far as to censor the Pooh from images of Kingdom Hearts 3. With regard to the Chinese Internet, Winnie l & rsquo; Pooh is a serious red flag.

Internet response to Red Candle's apology

Red Candle Games has generated a surge of support since its new statement was released earlier in the day – especially since many see the excuses as useless. Major video game developers have come to defend Red Candle Games and protest against its continuing lack of Steam.

"It's hard to read. What happened is not fair to the studio and many totally innocent people are suffering, "said a game developer on Twitter. wrote in response to the tweet from Red Candle.

"Reminder to players who promise to" get up ": that's what real censorship looks like," heads Ubisoft Monetreal's programming team Gavin Young wrote.

"[S]solidarity and solidarity and solidarity with [Red Candle Games]. [R]I feel it hurts my stomach. [M]My thoughts are with them ", podcast host Friends at the Table Jack from Quidt wrote.

"As unfortunate as the incident is, we must bear all the consequences," writes Red Candle Games. Meanwhile, the developer is asking commentators not to harass any of his publishing partners and recalls that the studio bears full responsibility for the controversy. However, this is the latest incident that shows how a seemingly harmless Internet in China can have dramatic consequences. The historical tensions between Taiwan and China have undoubtedly also intensified the controversy.

We contacted Red Candle Games to ask him for more details about his current commercial mediations and whether the studio had witnessed a wave of support from developers and fans.

Matt Kim is a journalist for IGN. You can reach him on Twitter.

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